CAST solar axion search with 3^He buffer gas: Closing the hot dark matter gap

Understand

The CERN Axion Solar Telescope (CAST) has finished its search for solar axions with 3^He buffer gas, covering the search range 0.64 eV < m_a <1.17 eV.

• This closes the gap to the cosmological hot dark matter limit and actually overlaps with it.
• From the absence of excess X-rays when the magnet was pointing to the Sun we set a typical upper limit on the axion-photon coupling of g_ag < 3.3 x 10^{-10} GeV^{-1} at 95% CL, with the exact value depending on the pressure setting.
• Future direct solar axion searches will focus on increasing the sensitivity to smaller values of g_a, for example by the currently discussed next generation helioscope IAXO.